World First for Pegasus
Selection to the England team for the World Gymnasiada in Doha, Qatar gave Courtney Tulloch his first opportunity in a World event featuring 102 boys from almost 30 nations. A week of intensive preparation with national Coach Sergei prior to departure on the 7 hour flight from Heathrow on Sunday 6th December saw greater cohesion in the team and enabled National Coach Sergey Sizhanov to fine tune his strategic approach to the team event in which there are 5 gymnasts, four of which are permitted to compete on each apparatus with the top 3 scores counting towards the team total.
An opportunity to train in the fabulous Aspire Centre of Excellence before the competition was valuable in adjusting to the air conditioning and the awesome size of a centre which houses not only a vast performance arena, several practice halls, swimming and diving pools along with conference, medical and sport science facilities.
Courtney was first up on Pommel and a clean swinging routine with good amplitude and execution notched up 13.30, which put him into the top eight and the apparatus final.
His confidence was evident as he mounted the podium to compete on Rings. Combination strength moves, coupled with swing to strength links, clean execution and held positions and a stuck landing brought in a top score of 13.6. and another final qualification. Excellent Vault and Parallel Bars routines also produced personal best scores at this level. Five boys competed 24 routines with only 2 errors between them in the whole event. The UK contingent was ecstatic as the English boys mounted the rostrum to take the Bronze medal behind Ukraine 1st and Spain 2nd. In the finals Courtney again performed clean stylish routines to finish 6th on Pommel and 4th on Rings just 0.1 away from the Bronze medal.
For more information about Pegasus Gymnastics visit www.pegasusgc.org
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Page created: 25 December 2009